What is Beautiful GPX?
Beautiful GPX is a free web tool for making a picture of a route. You bring in an activity from Strava or a GPX file, style the line, add stats and markers, and export a PNG: on a map, on a photo of your own, or on a transparent background so the route can sit on top of an Instagram story or a YouTube or TikTok video like a sticker.
It started with a cyclist who shares his bike trips on YouTube. On the About page he says he wanted a quick way to show the ten stages of his Vélodyssée trip in his videos, and now uses it for his own trail, gravel and road posts. It stays free and without ads, with optional donations to cover hosting and the like. The site is in French, with an English version from the language switch. No account is needed.
Key Features
Style the line
Color, thickness, opacity, gradients and an outline, with several tracks on one map each in its own style. A style you like can be saved and reused on the next activity.
Stats on the image
Performance widgets put distance, elevation gain, speed or pace and time on the picture, wherever you place them.
Markers and borders
Points of interest for towns, passes, bivouacs or numbered stages, start and finish markers, and country, region and department borders as a layer.
Backgrounds
OpenStreetMap, satellite, relief and dark map styles, your own photo or texture in place of the map, or nothing at all for a transparent export. Exports are high-resolution PNGs, sized for printing as well as social posts.
Multi-day trips
Import several GPX files at once, or tick several Strava activities, and they share one image with the distance, climbing and time added up. Keep each day in its own color or merge them into one line.
Projects saved in the browser
A whole project (track, markers, layers, widgets, background) can be saved in your browser and picked up later.
What it reads from Strava
Strava to Beautiful GPX, read only, and only if you choose to connect. You authorize it on Strava's site with the activity:read_all permission, which by Strava's definition covers all your activities, including those set to Only You. The privacy policy says the login token is kept in your browser's local storage, not on the site's server, and the activity list and GPS data are fetched from Strava straight into your browser. Nothing is written back to Strava. GPX and FIT files you open are read in the browser too and aren't sent to the site's server for rendering or export.
What does leave the browser, per the same policy: Matomo visitor statistics, the total distance of each PNG you export (for a public kilometer counter, with no coordinates), and anything you send through the editor's support form, which can include the tracks you have loaded.
Who It's For
- People who post on Instagram or make videos and want their route on a photo or as an overlay, in their own colors
- Bikepackers and hikers putting a multi-day trip on one map
- Race organizers making a course map for a poster or roadbook
- Strava users without a subscription who want more than the default share card
What it doesn't do
It makes images, not routes or analysis, and nothing goes back to Strava. It's a browser tool with no phone app. A Garmin Connect connection is planned but not live.
Can I undo merging tracks?
Not in the editor: merging is final, so import the files again to go back. To leave one stage out of a multi-day image instead, hide that track and it drops out of both the image and the added-up totals.
